Tribe, developer battle over rock mounds (RI)

As a boy, John Brown remembers traveling with
his family to the wooded hills in northwest Rhode Island where his fellow
Narragansett Indians gathered near stone piles they believe were left by
ancient ancestors.

That belief is now at the center of a struggle between the rural town of
North Smithfield and a developer who wants to build a 122-lot subdivision
on the land.

The town suspects the piles are burial mounds, and has filed a lawsuit
asking a judge to declare the land a historic burial ground. But the
developer contends the piles were left behind by farmers or loggers, and
has been pushing since 2001 to build.